


You Can't Help the Dead

by synstruck



Series: this is our aftermath [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synstruck/pseuds/synstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't remember what he looks like anymore.<br/>You only remember the color of his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Help the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Angst. Descriptions of blood and vague descriptions of injury. Vague hints at a possible one-sided Erwin/Levi.

You don't remember what he looks like anymore.

You only remember the color of his eyes.

~~

You wake up, gasping violently, to eyes the color of the clear blue sky on a cloudless day. Chest tight, body shaking, cold sweat running down your face even as you dig your fingers into your breast and struggle to breathe around the invisible bind around your lungs, your heart.

A choked sob slips past your lips as unwanted memories flash in your mind, staining your vision red  _red_   **red**.

Panicked screaming echoes in your ears, the heavy smell of sweat and leather filling your nose. Closing your eyes doesn't stop you from seeing jaws full of gravestone teeth clamping down one by one on terrified soldiers, from seeing the spray of blood as they died crying out for help, for mercy, for their mothers their fathers their families. You hear Hanji's surprised shout from just behind you as she gets knocked off her mount by a gigantic grasping hand, followed by Moblit's terrified yell. You spur your horse on faster, _faster_ ,  _fasterfasterfaster_ \--

You clutch harder at your shoulder, blinking away the red in your vision, as you try to remind yourself firmly that you're in your bedroom. That all this is just in your head. Blunt fingernails press painful crescents in your skin. You tell yourself that you are safe behind the walls, try to anchor yourself through the pinpricks of pain.

The screams and cries in your head gradually dies down as your breathing evens, and you bunch your hair in one fist as you press your face into the other. Unbidden, tears slip down your face as you try to press down the memory.

Hanji's eternally smiling face, the glint of her field goggles as she tilts her head cheekily. Blood wells up between her lips, staining her teeth with red, drips from her ears and trickles from under her hair as her eyes slide shut and her smile twists into a grimace of pain.

Moblit's earnest, worried expression giving way to fear as he coughs up a mouthful of blood, red dripping down his chin and staining his dark shirt even darker as he shouts in worry for Hanji.

A blur of blond hair dampened and darkened with blood, a flash of blue eyes as they stared at you for a long moment before closing forever.

You bite down another sob, twisting the vulnerable sound into a grunt. You punch the headboard, bitter satisfaction rising in your stomach as you hear the wood crack and feel the sting in your knuckles.

It's only been five years, but you barely remember his face anymore.

You remember him towering over you at six foot two. You remember the bitten stump of his arm. You remember his sunshine hair, how soft it looks and how it blows about in the wind.

Most of all, you remember the exact color of his eyes.

But what else?

What did he sound like? When he talked to you as a commander, as a friend? How big were his hands? The feel of them clapping against your shoulder, the feel of his fingers touching the back of your wrist?

What was his face like again? How sharp were his cheekbones? His jaw? His features had turned to a vague blur in your memory, and you couldn't for the life of you figure out why-- this man who was a part of your life for the greater part of ten years, whose face you saw on the god damned fucking daily for the most part, disappearing into this smear of colour in your mind?

And every time you try to remember,  all you can see is that final flash of his eyes in a bloodied face holding your gaze, and hear the cracking of bones as giant teeth close over his body. Hear your distant scream for him, as if you were listening from far away. From under the water. From a different plane, a different world.

You grit your teeth and scrub a hand over your eyes, trying not to choke on your stuttering breaths as you stamp out the blurry recollections. It sits, it settles behind your eyelids and you tighten your bruised fist as you push the memories back into the depths of your consciousness, trying not to lose yourself in the past, in another reality.

There's nothing you can do for them now.

Nothing you can do for  _him_ now.

You can't help the dead.


End file.
